Dear diary,
Besides trying to run a business in Purgatory, being an animal doctor who lives so far in the future proves rather difficult; for the only beasts that ever get sick or injured are God’s lamb and his pale horse. Now, it’s true that this single client’s two customers visit me frequently for emergency treatments, due to their owner’s inscrutable lifestyle; however, this is still not enough billable work for me to make ends meet. So I conclude, very sadly and after much soul-searching, that it’s nonviable to make a living in this fashion. Therefore, I shut down my veterinary clinic and decide to pursue my dream of becoming a shepherd.
I take the sign that’s hanging in my front entryway which reads “Yes, we’re OPEN / The doctor is IN”, and I flip it to the side that sez “Condemned by Government / WARNING / This site emits radioactive poison at a rate consistent with immediate death / If you can read this, then you are dead”.
After locking up, I walk over to the souvenir shop and purchase a postcard with a breathtaking photo of Purgatory, where my clinic was located (O! how it pains me to use that word in the past tense: “WAS”), and I write on the blank side of this postcard:
Dear Fernando Pessoa, full stop. Remember me, Bryan Ray, your pirate comrade, question mark. Well I am ready to attend shepherd college, long dash, are you still willing to go shepherding with me, three question marks. Open parenthesis, P.S. I sure hope that I can manage not to drop out or fail all my courses, exclamation point, heart emoticon, closed parenthesis.
Seventy-seven days later, when my beard is long and gray, and all the water in my canteen is almost gone (there’s only one drop left, which I am shaking out onto my protruding tongue, this instant), Senhor Pessoa’s answering postcard arrives in Purgatory — he writes as follows:
Dear Bryan, comma, yes I remember you and I love the idea, dot-dot-dot, I’ll see you soon, semicolon, I just need to figure out how to program my ship’s nav system, sixty-four thousand exclamation points, Jolly Roger flag.
“Yes-s-s!!!” I pump my fist in elation at hearing such good news.
“What are you yes-s-s-ing about, old man?” sez a scraggly pirate-voice with a Portuguese accent, apparently coming from a figure in the blurry mid-foreground; whose form snaps into focus with the very next line.
“Fernando Pessoa!” I shout “You’re here! O, welcome! I just got your postcard!”
“Ah, yes: ‘Greetings from the Great Lisbon Earthquake’,” sez Pessoa, taking the card from my hand; “ha ha! I thought that that would be an appropriate picture to represent me, since I myself, working solo — that is, with only the help of my legion of heteronyms — have caused more damage while serving as a pirate these last few years than that famous disaster did back in ’55.”
I’m in awe: “I wish I could say as much. But admittedly I’ve changed careers a couple times. My most recent job was as a vet, here in the afterlife; but that was only temporary: I closed up shop this morning… or rather a bit more than two months ago — it’s easy to lose track of time when you’re…”
“Please, no more gabbing,” sez Fernando, “let’s find some flocks of sheep and begin to watch over them!”
My expression is one of shame, as I stammer: “But, but, but…”
“No more buts, graybeard — get up and let’s go. C’mon, you already look the part!”
“But I haven’t even signed up for Shepherd’s College yet,” I say, blushing deeply. “I was planning on filling out the paperwork as soon as I received an answer from you. I honestly didn’t even know if you were still alive, or undead hereabouts or whatever; and I didn’t wanna go stand on hills with livestock all by myself…”
“College? …College!? …You’re joking, right? — What type of poet needs to be instructed on how to wear a coarse robe and hold a rod and a crook? Aren’t we pretty much born with such knowledge?”
“But I thought it would be neat to see what type of modern advancements academia has made to the ancient trade of livestock-tending,” I say. “Don’t you think it sounds attractive, in a devious way?”
Fernando Pessoa looks down and covers his mouth for a moment, apparently pondering this perspective that I’ve just put forward. Suddenly he answers: “I like this idea. Thanks for explaining — I’ll join you in college.”
My eyes widen: “Really? You’ll sign up for Shepherd School and take all the courses with me; so that we can learn how to keep sheep, side by side? And it’ll be all jokey and fun, like a Buddy Motion Picture?”
“Absolutamente,” sez the poet Fernando Pessoa.
§
So my new best friend Fernando joins me, and we enroll in Shepherd College. We then proceed through and continue on to finish a postgraduate education in general herdsmanship. We learn how to watch not only sheep, but pigs, cattle, goats, and every other type of being.
Teaching all courses is a duo of white-smocked scientists: Anna Karina and Monica Vitti, both from about the year 1960. — Lesson One is “How to find hills.”
“Hills are important,” sez Anna Karina in French with golden subtitles. “Mountains are OK, but hills are better, because they’re not as steep. And very gentle hills, known as hillocks, are the best — especially when they’re covered in soft grass.”
“Has any of you ever read Walt Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself’,” asks Monica Vitti, speaking Italian with golden subtitles, “from his poetry volume Leaves of Grass?”
I raise my hand high and wave it about impatiently and proudly, and so does Fernando.
“Good, good,” sez Monica; “then you already have the notion of what a shepherd’s life is like. For if you take that poem — the feeling of ease, freedom, and endless time that it gives you — and then subtract all the extra things from it other than livestock, THAT’s basically what herding is all about.”
“It’s just like standing around and thinking, while making sure that your animal friends are safe,” adds Anna Karina.
Now Monica Vitti reaches up and grabs the rolled-up map from where it is mounted at the top of the blackboard. She pulls down the large, heavy paper, which reveals not a depiction of the globe’s lands and oceans, as we expected, but rather a picture of a cute suckling lamb.
“Can anyone name this creature?” asks Ms. Vitti.
Again, Fernando and I raise our hands in tandem.
“Yes, you two eager fellows: go ahead and answer simultaneously.”
“It’s a lambkin,” we both say.
“Very good,” sez Ms. Vitti.
Then she takes turns with Ms. Karina unrolling picture after picture from the contraption that normally features maps of the world, and every image depicts a different type of livestock. The female scientists who are our teachers ask us to give the name of each creature, when it appears; and we always say the right word (cow, swine, goat, vicuña), except one time apiece — Fernando and I each get a single answer wrong, which reveals something about our personality: For, when they show a picture of a Burning Tyger battling the Leviathan, I shout, “That’s me and Herman Melville, just play-fighting!” But the teachers shake their heads and claim that its actually me and Executive Stevens enjoying a game of golf in Paradise, although Stevens happens to be attired as a Massive Cephalopod. (This correction irks me, but I keep to myself the criticism that the image therefore was a trick question, because Stevens always would transmogrify into human form whenever we golfed together [for proof, see my fake novel Cruisin for a Bruisin with the Giant Squid]; therefore the sublime sea-monster MUST be Melville.) — Then, when Ms. Vitti and Ms. Karina perform the grand finale by jointly pulling down a photo of Alberto Caeiro, Fernando spastically answers: “Ooh, I know this one! That’s Álvaro de Campos!” which makes the entire class roar with laughter; because, aside from the fact that the title “O Guardador de Rebanhos” is printed right there on the photo, these are Fernando’s own personas, thus he really should be able to tell them all apart.
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